The Bangladesh Export Processing Zone Authority (Bepza), which currently has 215 export units in six operating EPZs, said that as many as 96 units received approval in these zones between July 2003 and March 2005. These will invest US 375.75 million dollars and employ 64,000 people.

Of these newly approved units, 43 are dedicated to garments and its backward linkage units, and 17 to agro processing units. More applications of investors are waiting in the pipeline, Bepza officials say.

Presently there are 106 garment, textile, accessories and knitting units at the EPZs --most of them controlled by South Korean and Bangladeshi investors.

Bepza Chairman Brig Gen (retd) Zakir Hossain says that about 100 export units will come in to operation within the next fiscal year. Considering the history of the EPZs, this number is very significant.

"There are two main reasons why there is a sudden surge of investors' interest," Bepza Chairman Hossain notes, "Number one is our labour cost is still one of the lowest in the world. Number two is Bangladesh now gets duty free access to the European Union and Canada."

Explaining how the duty free access to the EU and Canada attracts investors, he said, "A Canadian factory is fully relocating itself in Bangladesh in a few months investing 25 million dollars because they used to pay a 19 percent duty for marketing their products in Canada. When they start production in Bangladesh and export the same to Canada, they will not have to pay any duty. Plus, their production cost will also go down."

Besides, export players foresee future benefits of sticking to Bangladesh. The country is currently lobbying for duty free access to the US market, and there is a good chance of winning in this bid. Secondly, Bangladesh has duty free access to Australia -- but has not yet tapped its potentials because this facility is tagged with a condition of "rules of origin". To fulfil this condition, Bangladesh must be fully equipped with the backward linkage industry and get the upperhand.

Presently China is beating Bangladesh in garments exports (and other products as well) due to its unusually low price. "But export players are aware that China is controlling their prices by artificially devaluing their currency against the dollar. Presently their currency is 40 percent devalued. Sooner or later, China will have to free their currency. When it does that, their prices will jump up accordingly -- giving Bangladesh the upperhand," the Bepza chairman noted.

This is also why Chinese investors themselves are also coming to Bangladesh, he added. "About 40 percent of our garments sector linkage items are imported from China. As this is a huge earning for China, they want to move these linkage industries to Bangladesh to retain their sales," he added.

"Overall, the EPZs' productivity remains very high because these are not affected by hartals and labour unrest. Sixty-nine percent of the employees are women," the chairman points out.

The Bepza targeted 1.5 billion dollars of export earning in the current fiscal. By March, it fetched 1.2 billion dollars. "We are set to exceed the target," he quips, "and as more units are coming up, we aim at fetching 3 billion dollars in the next fiscal."

"Even the existing investors are expanding their units because of their business boom," the chairman quips.

"Now that we have investors' attention, we have two concerns to keep their interest alive. The number one concern is the port and number two a power crisis," Chairman Hossain noted. "We want a dedicated jetty for the EPZs at the Chittagong port. To deal with the power crisis, we are now going for captive power generation as a short-term measure. But there should be a long term solution."

Investors also express their concerns about shortcomings in the country's infrastructure. "We see a grim power supply scenario in the coming years because the government could not initiate any new major power projects in the last three years," notes an investor of a joint venture company, requesting anonymity.

Bepza public relations manager Nazma Binte Alamgir says, since the government in the last fiscal year announced 30 percent cash incentives for agro processing units centred around the Iswardi EPZ, a large number of investors tilted to agro processing units.

"The foreign investors also seek this incentive. We believe such ventures have good potential. In the north Bengal, huge supplies of bananas or mangoes rot due to lack of proper storage. Once agro processing units come online, the north Bengal farmers will get their full benefit," Nazma added.

The country's first EPZ, set up in Chittagong in 1983, now has 121 units and the Dhaka EPZ set up in 1993 has 76 units.

The other EPZs set up after 2001 have only a few units -- the Mongla EPZ has 10 units, the Comilla EPZ 7 units, and the Syedpur and Iswardi EPZs only 1 unit each.

These EPZs combined fetched 9.57 billion dollars since their inception and are currently employing 1.51 lakh people.

Other than garment related industries, these have electronics, footwear, metal products, chemicals and other types of units.

Among these, South Korea has 56 units, Bangladesh 51, Japan 22, China and Hong Kong 22, US and UK 10 each, India 8, Taiwan 7, Malaysia 5, Germany 4, Pakistan 4, the Netherlands 3, and one each for Thailand, Switzerland, Panama, Denmark, Italy, Belgium. There are several joint ventures which include Australian and Canadian investors.

Among the new investors, who represent the aforementioned countries, there will also be Ireland, Singapore and Nepal.

The EPZs attract investors as they offer a 10-year tax holiday and duty free import of export raw materials.